Recently, A friend pointed me to a pirate certificate MIT was handing out to its students who had successfully completed Archery, Fencing, Pistol, and Sailing. My friend knew that I was partial to pirates. (Captain Jack Sparrow, le *sigh*) What my friend didn’t know is that I also want to be a pirate, no really, forget Calgon taking me away, Jolly Roger – have at it.

I carefully constructed an argument of why our entire family should be awarded an honorary Pirate Certificate and sent it off to MIT.

What follows is my petition to them that be at the MIT helm.

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If it please ye, this here New Hampshire family consisting of 2 rum-swillers and 6 scallywags petitions to be accepted as Honorary MIT Pirates.

According to the venerable and highly respected website: wikihow, me shipmates and me all pass the stringent requirements for bein’ pirates with flying Jolly Rogers colors.

We growl and scowl often (especially the parents to the children after a long day of swabbing the decks and then seeing dirty dishes in the TV room instead of the sink.)

We use pirate lingo often and tell pirate tales at parties including the ever popular:

What did the pirate say when his wooden leg got stuck in the freezer?

Shiver me timbers.

We gesture with our hands (a skill most useful when on the high seas during wild winds and hearin’ be hard – just be mindful of gesturing before ye be used to yer handhook.)

We slur our words together (especially when an “r” is involved as in “adventuraarrrrrrh” or with the adults when the rum bottle has been passed around.)

We never use you or you’re and instead always use the favorite pirate vernacular of “ye” or “ya.” (Me dear mum demonstrated that grammatical rule to me on a daily basis when me be only a young pup. “Ye be strong, Ye be smart, Ye be beautiful,” she said each morning as she helped attach me sword to me belt.)

We embellish at will (especially the youngin’s who have never met a tall tale they wouldn’t like to tell, although if you asked them, they’d like to think that, bein’ fine upstanding pirates-in-training, they would never embellish anything in a million years.)

We mutter unintelligibly unless of course we be yelling. (see above notation regarding the rum bottle.)

We are as loud as humanly possible. (What’s the use of being a pirate if ye neighbors don’t know?)

We wear the nearest facsimile to a parrot on our shoulders. Chickens are a bit more hardy during the fierce New Hampshire winters and during these economic hard times, even pirates have to make do with what we be havin’. See our outstanding pirate family chicken photos here: Pirate Family Chicken Photos

Honored, our crew would be if ye would consider conferring upon us the award of honorary MIT pirates and makin’ us one of the gang. We know a fine crew when we be seein’ one.